Fumonisin B2 in wine: another wine scare?

Question

It has long been known that dangerous mycotoxins produced by fungus can contaminate food including peanuts, coffee, grapes, and many other foods. Wine also can contain very small amounts of aflatoxins and ochratoxin. These natural contaminants are heavily regulated both in the US and Europe.

An article appeared in the March 22, 2010, issue of Chemical and Engineering News, a news publication of the American Chemical Society. The article "Wine's Mycotoxin Profile Grows" is on p 44.There is an online site at

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but you can read this article there only if you are a member of the ACS. The printed publication is received by many ACS members and is found in university and some large public libraries.

A recent publication by Nielsen and others in Denmark has found another mycotoxin known as Fumonisin B2 in wine. The original research is presented in J. Agric. Food Chem., DOI: 10.1021/jf904520t .This journal likely is difficult to find outside of a few technical libraries. The research group developed testing methods and tested 77 red and white wines from around the world in vintages from 1991 to

2008. Fumonisin B2 was detected in 18 wines in concentrations ranging from 1 to 25 micrograms/L. A researcher at the U.S Department of Agriculture said that even the maximum concentration detected in the wines is still only about 1 percent of the guidance level for Fumonisins in maize.

Thus it appears that there is no need to become excited about this new finding, at least for the wines studied. Likely the study should be extended to more wines. It is still possible some wine could be found with enough Fumonisin B2 to be of concern. Perhaps a really nasty, cheap, sweet wine made from overripe grapes containing some that are moldy and rotten would be interesting to test.

It will be interesting to see if some of the general press picks this up and if they present the fiindings correctly.

cwdjrxyz · Accepted Answer

Lipton does not seem to have been around for about a week - perhaps he is away on spring break. I now have a link to the published research article. It is

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. You can view the abstract for free, but it costs $US 30 to view the complete article for 48 hours. In addition I find my post here is at a group called FoodJunkies where I am listed as guest. I do not recall ever hearing of that site are visiting it. I perhaps need to contact my physician to see if I am suffering from a age-related dementia :-) .

st.helier · Answer

Professor LiptonTranslation required pleaseAntipodean Andy

DaleW · Answer

The names/sites seem to change, but there are a variety of these sites that "aggregate" (steal) content from here. There was one that assigned us "user names" in attempt to make it look like we were participants on their forum. I believe I was Arizona Girl!

cwdjrxyz · Answer

To see one example of why fumonisins are of concern in relation to human health see:

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. In this document you find:

"FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) evaluated the fumonisins and allocated a group provisional maximum tolerable daily intake (PMTDI) of 2 ìg/kg body weight to FB1, FB2 and FB3, alone or in combination (WHO 2002)."

Even for a light human of weight 50 kg(a bit over 100 pounds), it would require over 4 L per day of wine containing 25 micro grams per L (the highest value found in wine in the study) to exceed the maximum tolerable daily intake above. For a relatively large human, of weight

100 kg(a bit over 200 pounds) it would require over 8 L per day to exceed the limit. Thus, unless wines are found that have much higher levels of fumonisins than those reported in the study, it seems a person who drank over 4 to 8 L of wine a day might have other severe health problems long before any health issues produced by high levels of fumonisins,such as cancer, had time to develop.

cwdjrxyz · Answer

If the above is posted and/or viewed on Google groups, Google may makean error and print 2ig/kg instead of (microgram symbol)/kg even thoughthe quote was copied and pasted from the article.

Mark Lipton · Answer

Good call. It was actually our son's Spring Break, which we spent bouncing around Florida (and effectively out of Internet contact). Interesting article, BTW, but as you say not anything to get terribly worked up about. FWIW, fumonisin inhibits the production of a class of fatty molecules known as ceramides and leads to toxicity of the liver and kidneys.

Mark Lipton

Fumonisin B2 in wine: another wine scare?

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